


Rats With White Hair

by booktick



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Derogatory Language, Desperation, Doomed Relationship, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Heavy Angst, High Chaos (Dishonored), Maybe - Freeform, Sad Ending, Sad story is sad, Self-Denial, misogynistic language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 19:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15848052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booktick/pseuds/booktick
Summary: "Soon the money will run out. And when it does, things will not go well for him."





	Rats With White Hair

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of this franchise. 
> 
> A/N: just a fun fic for two small part characters during the rat plague--what could go wrong?

* * *

It's only a cough in the beginning. Lots of people have coughs, have a stomach sickness and nothing more. But not in this day and age, not in Dunwall, where rats move in hoards and infect the very core of society itself. Adelle says nothing of it. Adelle White does not get sick.

Ramsey tells himself they will be one of the few that make it out of this place alive. A few hours and two glasses of whiskey later and he scolds himself for his ignorance. As if it would be _that_ easy. The Lord Regent had boarded them off from the rest of the world. He could contact Slackjaw, as disgraceful as the thought was, and see if the criminal had any outs. Perhaps to Tyvia...or Serkonos...

Adelle orders at least three more sets of fabric for her outfit to the Boyles upcoming party. He watches her, day in and day out, prattle on about how the three sisters would probably repeat themselves in this year's guessing game. It was a shame. He doesn't have the heart to disagree with her. She admires his silence when all he's done for years is talk. She's fully aware he's on his last few bags of coin, not enough to even hire a maid or to get a box of Solokov's elixirs. She orders three pairs of shoes on his dime anyway. He let's her. It's worth it to see her thoughts occupied elsewhere...anywhere else.

As for the actual Boyle Party, it proves as fruitless as he imagined. No one is happy there. They move and gossip but it holds emptiness. There's no use in long term goals, only getting to tomorrow. If he did things...if they did things in small steps, they could accomplish their exit of Gristol. He tries to talk some sense into Adelle at the party.

He mentions that he could get her out if she wanted, even though he's doubtful himself. It would still require a boat and someone willing to get close to Dunwall despite the rise in the body count lately. It's that damned masked mute that troubles them the most...at least, it certainly troubled him. Adelle finds the stranger cute, even has them get her a drink. Ramsey knows he could have gotten her a drink _._ Hell, a dozen if she wanted. It's not _that_ hard.

He _could_ be as reckless as that stranger if he wanted. It's what she likes apparently and he wasn't it that evening. He had done everything for her, could she not see that? He had gambled with his mask for example. A whale of all things. It wasn't even that original, it didn't stand out and it was too hot inside it. The damn mask was too tight and too big for his head to begin with.

His mask makes his face itch something horrible really. It had been since he put the damn thing on but Adelle assured him it was fashionable. That's what he gets for listening to the woman who wore a moth as her mask. It doesn't help that that nosy nobody was prying into a private conversation--into their conversation--it makes his skin itch even more. Adelle waves off his concern like she does summer heat. For a few breaths, he hates her for it. After he lets his tail remained tucked between his legs, he tries to ask her to follow him, to speak somewhere more discreet, to forget the silent stranger.

But he's kicked to the curb, as he has been so often before. It's only when Adelle is feeling flirty does he understand how the evening will play out at the Boyle's. He wanders off soon after the exchange of little words, to smoke and drink by himself. If that masked fool bothers him again he'll certainly fetch a guard. Such inconveniences were unwelcomed with Dr. Ramsey, even during a rat plague. After he brushes enough backs, he spends unearned coin on information on Slackjaw through Shaw.

Montgomery is good to get information from, if one has enough coin. The greedy bastard. No wonder Pendleton wants him dead. No rush though, Adelle is most likely going to bed a few before the night is through. If he's lucky, Lydia will entertain him with her music. It's momentary rest before the storm--Dunwall is finished. He only finds two out of three Boyles by the time he bothers to actually look for Lydia. It seems a bit odd at the time but he shrugs it off. The trio had bedded half of Gristol and was probably making their way through this party already.

In the end, Ramsey chooses drink over a good fuck. Adelle finds him soon after, her Prince Charming has wandered off. Perhaps he was mistaken of choosing only one. He decides he could have both and they wander off into a pantry. Afterwards, she walks with him around the manor, arm in arm as if wed. It doesn't stop either from continuing their drinking. Free drink is free and should never be turned down in Dunwall.

He's about five glasses in before he wanders to the guest ledger on the table. He leans in far too close, making Adelle almost spill her own drink from the movement. She kisses at his ear, whispering things the Abbey would whip her for and things he'd gladly do to her if she was serious. His free hand slaps down onto the ledger, making the table shake. The nearby guard says nothing but grunts in their direction. Adelle laughs far too loudly before tucking her face into her arm to cough. Unfortunately, he's too focused on the ledger to notice this time. He lets his thumb lazily drags along the name, smearing the ink along the way. The name Corvo Attano is signed at the bottom.

What a sick joke.

It's about half past three in the morning before anyone realizes Lady Boyle is gone. Poor girl. She'll turn up at some point he figures, whether wrapped in a sheet or with red stained cheeks or, if she really is as clever as she thinks she is, with Brisby's head on a platter--either way, she'll crawl back to Dunwall. He didn't require a nose in the grapevine to know how obsessed Brisby was with her. The cretin would get his in the end, just like the rest of them. 

He forgets to ask Shaw for directions to Slackjaw's business. In fact, Shaw seems to have disappeared from the party all together. He hears something about a duel with Pendleton before he tunes it out and enjoys Adelle for a second round. He couldn't give a rat's ass about Lady Boyle on an emotional level, even personal, the same went for Shaw. Adelle, on the other hand, is deeply troubled by all of it. He decides maybe he should be concerned...if nobility can vanish...then what did it mean for him? Everyone already heard about little Treavor's brothers vanishing. And now Boyle?

Damn it all. 

Adelle wants to leave immediately after the Boyle's party. He starts seeking out his contacts, only to discover half of them are dead or vanished since the night Corvo Attano escaped prison. He tries desperately not to panic, sweat on his palms and an upset stomach, when he tells her. Adelle screams at him, at herself, and at the Outsider himself. If the Abbey had heard, they'd both be in chains by now.

Campbell would have had great fun with them both. Nothing was fun about any of this. Lucky for them, Campbell was gone and the Abbey was too busy sorting out the mess that was Dunwall. Ramsey always thought the Abbey was a mess in itself but that was another story. Everything was absolutely and terribly fucked. His title meant nothing and Adelle wouldn't stop her damn sobbing. He has to hold her for hours until she calms down enough to listen properly. Her eyes beg him. Adelle White never begs.

This...This was not how things were supposed to go.

He assures her that it will be alright. That he can fix this. Adelle has to take an elixir to fall to sleep that night. He stole it from Dr. Galvani's. The self absorbed jackass won't even notice. Too busy with his... _rats_.

Everything was in disarray, only the speakers let anyone know what was going on and that was only if they were working as expected--which wasn't always. It isn't too hard to sneak in, _fewer_ and _fewer_ guards have been posted there ever since Galvani's recent break ins or so he's heard from Shaw. There's only two or three elixirs left in the place anyway, he can't remember really. He was too busy rushing through alleyways to get back to Adelle after all.

With an elixir downed, she sleeps through the night while he counts what's left of his coin. She spent enough to fill Dunwall Tower within a month. He won't be able to pay Slackjaw now. He doesn't have anything of worth either, not even a bonecharm. Slackjaw answers only to coin, which he had little to none. He figures it's for the best anyway. The deviant would have probably slit him from nose to naval before he got a word in, that's if his men didn't get to him first. He was a doctor, not an assassin. He would have lost that battle and lost it _hard_.

So, instead, he watches over Adelle as she rests. She even coughs as she sleeps. He refuses to tell her that when she wakes. She must be aware though. Her ribs rattle harder than a ship in a storm. His throat starts to grow raw after that, made it harder to swallow his pride and guilt. She says it makes him interesting for once. It'd be funny...if it weren't so damn dreadful.

It isn't long after Lady Boyle's disappearance that the rest of Dunwall starts to crumble in on itself. Adelle's cough worsens by the time they're on their own. Hadn't they been this entire time? Not even Shaw was there to whisper secrets in his ear. Shaw had turned up alive a few days after the party, apparently that same stranger he saw at the party had shot a sleep dart at Shaw or so he heard--for a duel no less!  _Coward_. 

But that didn't particularly matter anymore, did it? Shaw won't answer his letters anymore. Ramsey thinks it's out of fear more than spite this time around. No one wants to catch the plague after all. But they don't have it, neither him nor Adelle. It was just a mistake surely...

Adelle forgets the Empress is dead by the time they are able to get out of the Tall Boys' shadow and actually breathe again. Not that it was easy to do much of that. His own cough shows itself when he's guiding her through the Flooded District, in a matter of days they're homeless. Their homes, their neighborhoods, their life--shut off. Quarantined by the Abbey.

Adelle laughs until she cries then she's quiet all together. Her cheeks are pink, he tells himself it's not red. She's just overwhelmed. It'll be alright. They just need to find Slackjaw. He can offer up the Treavor Pendleton. The High Regent had a reward for any traitors reported. Shaw liked to talk when drunk, he had gotten an idea where the little weasel was hiding out on off hours, the things little Treavor was whispering behind his back. It's not until he hears on the speakers that the High Regent is dead that it all...slides off his back.

That had been his last card.

His deck had been plucked. He was left with nothing. Adelle would surely abandon him now. He let's go of her as soon as they find a makeshift house of cardboard, a dying fire in a can near by. He sits, hands in his lap and his head hung. The metal on metal slaps from followed with a bell from above let's him know what's been delivered. Thuds and thuds and more thuds are heard only so far from them. Adelle is still alert enough to notice and asks if someone is there. She is lifting her head, her tangled curls with ash and dust collected in them sway with the sudden movement. The dead say nothing back.

Adelle doesn't ask anymore questions after that. He wouldn't have any answers anyway. This was not how things were supposed to go. He had family in Tyvia, he could have written to them. He could have taken Adelle away the moment the Empress died. But no. No, he was a doctor. He was high society. He'd been invited to the damn Boyle Party. He had to stay in Dunwall and die like everyone else.

Adelle doesn't sleep anymore, neither does he. He cries because he doesn't remember how to smile for her. Her knuckles are cracked and bloody as she reaches towards him. He doesn't even try to pull away. He's heard the stories of what the Wheepers do. But she picks his hands up, brings his own battered hands to her lips and gives them the gentlest of kisses. He realizes that she's the only person who's ever done such a thing for him. He wants to say he loves her. His tongue is stone inside his mouth.

He watches her, until he aches to his core.

Her cheeks are red.

"All will be well in the morning, Jack." She whispers.

It's the last thing she says.

 


End file.
